A couple weeks after naming my fear of infertility, Stephen and I were with our students at Woodlands Camp, up in the north Georgia mountains. It was DIGG retreat weekend. One of our favorite weekends with our students.
Saturday morning, I found myself up front in the big new sanctuary room, surrounded in a sea of students, worshiping with all their hearts. The theme of the whole weekend was prayer.
In the middle of these students, my arms in the air, we sang these words
With every breath
With every heartbeat
And I prayed, Oh God, would you make a heartbeat inside my womb?
It came from the depths of my heart before I really even knew it. And the answer before I could’ve ever formulated it on my own. It’s my favorite when He does that. When my heart gushes out a prayer, an ask, a longing, a surrender.
And He answers from His glorious goodness. A voice so soft, so tender, but so sure. I knew it could never be mine. Not even a question. It couldn’t be mine because I couldn’t have even thought that fast. I had barely completed my heart prayer and there was His voice.
The sweetest.
The most tender.
That voice that says everything is going to be OK. It begs me to trust Him, not in words, but in a knowing. Like He knows me and I know Him. It was almost like I could feel His hand on my soul, calming me. And His words?
I will.
He will. He didn’t reveal the when. But He gave an answer. He will make a heartbeat inside my womb.
He will.
And He is so trustworthy. So. Trustworthy.
I sat back down and couldn’t stop thinking about what I heard. How kind of God!
Right after this session, we went into a time of prayer. Each student and leader encouraged to head to one of the designated spots to connect with the Lord.
I opened my Bible and started reading. God brought me to this passage:
Isaiah 42:5-9, MSG:
God’s Message, the God who created the cosmos, stretched out the skies, laid out the earth and all that grows from it, Who breathes life into earth’s people, makes them alive with his own life: “I am God, I have called you to live right and well. I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe. I have set you among my people to bind them to me, and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations, to make a start at bringing people into the open, into the light: opening blind eyes, releasing prisoners from dungeons, emptying the dark prisons. I am God. That’s my name. I don’t franchise my glory, don’t endorse the no-god idols. Take note: The earlier predictions of judgment have been fulfilled. I’m announcing the new salvation work. Before it bursts on the scene, I’m telling you all about it.
Wow. Ok God. You are God. I am not. Your ways are so much higher than mine. We trust that You will.
Then March came.
Surely this would be the month! After what God had spoken!
Nope. Sure wasn’t.
I had God’s sweet reminders, but I also had my body’s rude ones.
It was hard to hear His voice through the warring. There was peace and trust and comfort whenever we read His Word.
But there was also reality of how my body wasn’t cooperating.
My daily temps were no longer an easy chart to read. They were haywire, leaving me confused and frustrated. I wanted so badly to be able to interpret timing accurately, for me, for Stephen. All he could do was look to me and trust what I was seeing and feeling. But it didn’t make any sense.
And then the night sweats.
They started as far back as October, not consistent. But they were there. In Kenya too. And now, in March, I wake up drenched. An awful reminder of my body operating against my will. It’s something I have no control over.
Talk about getting in your head. Waking up to your alarm at 5 in the morning, wet and gross. A slap in the face. But there wasn’t time to dwell. I’d shower and rush to work, another 12-hour day of caring for laboring moms ahead.
And God would encourage.
He continued to speak.
One of the ways I love to meet with Him is through nature. I just love experiencing His creation. Often I feel like it’s a gift of beauty He created just for me. I see and feel His love so easily through nature.
One morning I was sitting with Him on our bed, the window blinds open, a full view of the trees right in front of me. I was pouring my heart out to Him about our desire to have kids and mourning another month with a period. In the midst of my pain and prayers, He brought the sweetest birdsong in through the window. I looked out and saw a robin. He reminded me of His Word in Matthew 6:26:
Look at the birds of the air...are you not much more valuable than they?
It had a way of instantly calming my soul.
A few weeks later, He did it again.
That birdsong, drifting in the window.
I had been sitting with Him for awhile, I hadn’t heard any outside noises. None at all. And then there it was, clear and loud and it literally stopped my thoughts in their tracks. It was like His direct song of peace for right then in that moment.
One morning a few more weeks later, I was having a sweet lazy morning breakfast at home with my husband. Pancakes and OJ and lingering conversation. As we washed the dishes and put them away, I glanced out the window above the sink. I did a double-take! There on the fence sat the fattest most pregnant robin I have ever seen. The one, I am certain, has been singing to me.
Lord, have your way.
Even yet, even with moments like these, at this point I was feeling raw. Not sure what to think. To feel. Not ever sure what my body was doing.
And all this 8 months in, without any real reason to believe I couldn’t bear children.
Thank you very much, little childhood fear run rampant in my heart and mind.
It had finally been long enough to seek some medical advice. Run some tests. Do some lab work. Ask the hard questions.
It should all be fine. Shouldn’t it?
I hate tests. All in my school years, I loathed them. Well, here was a test. A big one. One I could fail and have no control over.
I stick out my arm, give my blood and say a prayer. Will it to be good...healthy?
And we wait.
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